The Marionette Man

It was the first cool morning since spring had turned to summer and downtown was still and eerily quiet except for the distant church bells and deserted except for the homeless sleeping on the courthouse lawn. There was a faint, leftover mist in the air though I thought it would burn off by mid-morning. It was here on this Sunday before Labor Day that I met the man who feeds the birds.

He was sitting on one of the iron benches, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and scattering birdseed to a thick flock of pigeons from a rusty Community Coffee can held firmly between his knees. They billed and cooed around his ankles, a chorus line of them perched on the top rung behind him, one or two had actually landed on his left shoulder. His jacket was smeared with guano but he didn't seem to mind. Amid all this sea of blue and gray, a brown and white bird fluttered and landed on his free shoulder. He cupped a handful of birdseed and held it out to her, smiling as she ate right from his hand. As I got closer, I realized he was singing - I caught some of the words, Hail, hail, the gang's all here - and I recognized “Alabama Jubilee”.

When he noticed me watching, he nodded and gave me a little wave. The movement unsettled the pigeons and they rose in a feathery cloud, circled over him for a few seconds, then slowly landed back all around him.

After another few minutes, he turned the coffee can upside down and emptied the remains onto the grass then stowed the can in a battered knapsack. The pigeons, seeming to understand that breakfast was over, wandered off and he slowly got to his feet and dusted himself off.

He was, I saw immediately, uncommonly tall. His clothes hung on his skeletal frame like limp dustcloths.

Mornin', ma'am, he said politely, Ain't it a fine day to be alive.

It is that, I agreed, But your friends have gone.

Oh, they be back long about noon, I reckon, he shrugged, them and me, and the squirrels, we got a 'rangement.

Given his height and slender build, I'd expected him to be light on feet. I'd imagined his limbs would be fluid like a dancer - or maybe a basketball player – but to my surprise, he moved like a marionette. His motions were jerky and disconnected and his hightop clad feet were clunky, his footsteps thudded. When I looked a little closer, I realized that what I'd taken for thin was closer to emaciated. He was all angles and sharp edges, from his gaunt, hollow face with the smudges under his eyes all the way to his bony knees. His khaki pants ended above his ankles and his jacket sleeves rode up to above his wrists but - more surprise - he was belt-less,

his pants held up by a pair of bright, Christmas red suspenders. He wrangled the knapsack over his shoulders, gave the suspenders a smart double thumbed snap and began walking across the courthouse lawn in the direction, I hoped, of Christian Services.

He reached the crosswalk and although there wasn't a car in sight, he still waited obediently for the light to change, then looked both ways and headed across. From the opposite sidewalk, he turned and tipped his cap to me then disappeared into an alley.  The leftover pigeons on the courthouse lawn took flight, formed a loose formation overhead, and followed.